Birds of the RockiesKeyser, Leander S. (Leander Sylvester)
History
Birds of the Rockies
Keyser, Leander S. (Leander Sylvester)
Birds; Birds -- Colorado
A stop-over at Bailey's proved satisfactory for several reasons, among
which was the finding of the Louisiana tanagers, which were the first we
had seen on this trip, although many of them had been observed in the
latitude of Colorado Springs. Afterwards we found them abundant in the
neighborhood of Boulder. The only pigmy nuthatches of this visit were
seen in a ravine above Bailey's. In the same wooded hollow I took
occasion to make some special notes on the quaint calls of the
long-crested jays, a task that I had thus far deferred from time to
time. There was an entire family of jays in the ravine, the elders
feeding their strapping youngsters in the customary manner. These birds
frequently give voice to a strident call that is hard to distinguish
from the cries of their kinsmen, the mountain jays. When I pursued the
couple that were attending to the gastronomical wants of their children,
one of the adults played a yodel on his trombone sounding like this:
"Ka-ka-ka, k-wilt, k-wilt, k-wilt", the first three short syllables
enunciated rapidly, and the "k-wilts" in a more measured way, with a
peculiar guttural intonation, giving the full sound to the _k_ and _w_.
The birds became very shy when they thought themselves shadowed, not
understanding what my pursuit might imply, and they gave utterance to
harsh cries of warning that were different from any that had preceded.
It was presently followed by a soft and friendly chatter, as if the
birds were having an interview that was exclusively _inter se_. Then one
of them startled me by breaking out in a loud, high key, crying, "Quick!
quick! quick!" as fast as he could fling the syllables from his tongue.
This, being translated into our human vernacular, obviously meant,
"Hurry off! danger! danger!" A few minutes of silence followed the
outburst, while the birds ambled farther away, and then the echoes were
roused by a most raucous call, "Go-ware! go-ware! go-ware!" in a voice
that would have been enough to strike terror to the heart of one who was
not used to uncanny sounds in solitary places. After that outburst the
family flew off, and I could hear them talking the matter over among
themselves far up the mountain side, no doubt congratulating one another
on their hair-breadth escape. The youngsters looked quite stylish with
their quaint little blue caps and neatly fitting knickerbockers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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